Authors: Sharon Sala
“Great job,” Tate added.
Wade grinned. “Got anything to eat around here?”
Everyone laughed.
Having their first real lead was a high they would be happy to repeat.
* * *
It was after eight before Cameron arrived at the shelter. He had just parked beside the motor home and gotten out carrying a take-out bag from one of Laura’s favorite Chinese restaurants when he heard her calling his name. He turned around just as she came out of the church at a lope.
“I was watching for you,” she said as she threw her arms around his neck for a quick kiss. When she saw the bag, she grinned. “Ooh, spring rolls?”
He chuckled. “Yes, and a few of your other favorites, too.”
“Thank you! I’m starved.”
“Are you okay to leave right now? We can go inside if you need to be there. Lord knows I’ve spent plenty of time in shelters with you.”
“No, it’s okay. I called in another worker to take the night shift. And it looks like this is going to come to an end sooner than we thought. If nothing happens to change the situation, we got word they’ll be allowed to go home sometime tomorrow afternoon or evening. So let’s go to the trailer. It’s chilly and feels like rain.”
“Good news. Lead the way.”
She unlocked the door to the motor home and walked in, leaving him to lock up behind them.
“I’m going to wash up,” she said, and made a beeline for the bathroom as Cameron set the bag onto the little table. He took off his jacket and began looking around, impressed by the luxuries that had been downsized to fit such a small space.
A few moments later she was back.
“I’ll get the plates and forks if you’ll set out the food. Do you want me to make coffee or—”
“Maybe later. I’m good with a soft drink or water.”
“I have bottles of lemon iced tea.”
“Perfect,” he said, and began pulling the little boxes out of the bag.
A few minutes later they were sharing a meal and the events of their day. They were almost finished when he laid his fork down and looked up.
“Have you heard anything more about your runaway?”
Laura nodded. “They contacted her grandparents in New York State, who of course thought she was dead. They’re ecstatic.”
“Oh, wow. Talk about a miracle for them.” He reached for her hand. “That’s how scared I was when your plane went down. I thought I’d lost you. And then we found the wreckage, and the first person we saw was the pilot. Then the two bodies that had fallen against the door, and even as I was looking for you, I was afraid of what I would find.”
Laura had stopped eating, and her hands were in her lap.
Cameron frowned. “What’s wrong? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought up such a—”
“I dragged the bodies there,” she said, and without realizing it, she began rocking where she sat. “The wolves were trying to get to Ken...to the pilot. The windshield was broken. I was afraid they would get in and get me.”
Cameron felt sick. All this time, and he hadn’t known.
“The door wouldn’t stay closed. I guess it was sprung or something after the crash. I pulled their bodies against the door to keep it shut. I thanked them for helping save me. I told them I was sorry.”
Cameron jumped out of his seat and pulled her into his arms.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to resurrect your nightmare. And don’t feel guilty, baby. Not ever. You did what you had to do to stay alive. That’s how the strong survive.”
Laura was crying again, but she didn’t want to.
“I’m sorry. I ruined our dinner, and I didn’t mean to—”
“Come, sit,” he said, and tugged her hand as he led her to the sofa. “I don’t know about you, but I need a hug, and I have some news to share, too.”
Laura leaned against his shoulder, taking comfort in the hug and the deep rumble of his voice near her ear.
“Tell me something good,” she said.
“I can go you one better. I’m going to
show
you something good. Hang on.”
He jumped up from the sofa, got a paper from the inside pocket of his jacket and then dropped it in her lap as he sat back down.
“Take a look at that,” he said.
She unfolded the paper, stared at the face for a moment and then looked up.
“I think I’ve seen him. Once sitting in a van in traffic, and again making a donation after the gas explosion.”
Cameron’s gut knotted. If Inman was lurking around Laura, that most likely meant she was the target. He would have to tell the team.
“You said he was driving a van. Do you remember what color?”
Laura frowned. “Light color, maybe. I didn’t pay attention, because I didn’t recognize him. He looks so different now.”
“Yeah, that’s Inman, fifty pounds lighter, bald and mustached. He’s had some reconstructive surgery on the facial scarring.” Then he handed her another photo. This time all she could see was a man’s body from the chest down, holding a bunch of balloons. “Check out the bow legs. It’s hard to disguise a body feature like that.”
Laura felt sick, knowing Inman had been scoping her out.
“So now you know for sure he’s here. But why? How is he choosing victims? They aren’t storm survivors. Why has he targeted them?”
“We’re still working on that,” Cameron said. “But I wanted you to know this face. When you know your enemy, then you know who to fight...and you’ve turned into a pretty good opponent.”
She nodded, thinking of what he’d taught her about self-defense.
“Hang on a sec,” he said. “I’m going to call Tate and let him know about this. I’ll be right back.”
He left the room and made the call, filling them in on everything she’d said, but without anything solid to go on, Inman was still in control.
Going back to face her was hard. He hated the tension on her face, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Even so, he changed the subject.
“Hey, we still have fortune cookies,” he said. He got up again and dug them out of the sack. “Pick one,” he said, holding them out in his palm.
Laura chose one, opened the little cellophane wrapper, then cracked the cookie and read her fortune.
“‘Your life is about to undergo great change.’” She frowned. “I hope that means I’m still here when the change is over.”
“You’re getting married. That’s a great change, so quit looking for the bad stuff,” he said, and kissed the side of her cheek to take away the sting of the words.
“What does yours say?” she asked.
He opened the cookie, read it, then laughed as he repeated it aloud.
“‘You are one tough cookie.’”
“It does not say that,” she said, then snatched it out of his hand and read it aloud.
“‘You are wise in the ways of man.’ What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. I just like being one tough cookie better.”
Then he pulled her up on his lap and proceeded to kiss her senseless.
Sixteen
T
he threatening storm finally moved in while they were asleep.
Cameron woke in the night to the sound of rain on the roof of the motor home, with Laura curled up behind him, as always with her nose so close to his back he could feel the warmth of her breath against his skin. He knew he was her touchstone to safety, but with Hershel Inman back in their lives, the pressure to keep her out of that madman’s hands was overwhelming.
He turned over carefully until she was facing him, then slipped his arm beneath her neck and cradled her close against his chest. She shifted unconsciously in her sleep and then sighed. When he felt her body relax, he closed his eyes.
The next time he woke it was morning, Laura was gone and the alarm was going off. Then he heard the shower running and got out of bed.
* * *
Laura was standing completely under the showerhead with her eyes closed, rinsing the soap out of her hair. When she heard the shower door slide open, she fumbled for her washcloth.
“It’s just me,” Cameron said as he stepped up behind her and cupped her breasts with both hands. “I didn’t think we should let all this water go to waste on one little blonde.”
She was laughing and trying to wipe the soap out of her eyes when his hands slid from her breasts to the juncture of her thighs.
“I don’t know if this shower is big enough for two of us,” she said, and then groaned at the feel of his erection pushing against her backside. Just the thought of it inside her made her ache.
“Don’t move,” he whispered. “Let me.”
Bracing both hands against the wall, she leaned forward. The water was pummeling her back, and Cameron’s hands were on her hips.
He was hard and hot.
She was soapy and wet.
It was a match made in heaven.
A short while later, Cameron left the motor home for the D.C. police department while Laura walked across the parking lot into the church and went to work.
* * *
Hershel woke up as close to pain-free as he’d been in days. He was almost afraid to move and aggravate his back, but he needed to pee and once again had no other option. He got out of bed without a muscle spasm ripping through him and smiled as he walked to the bathroom. He was better.
“Halle-freakin’-lujah,” he muttered, and peed off his erection.
It never occurred to him anymore to want a woman beneath him in any other way but dead. He had long since channeled his sex drive into hate and revenge. His high came in knowing when he’d made fools of the people who’d let him down.
He opted for a long hot shower, letting the jets of hot water pummel the sore muscles in his back, and then dressed to go out. Sometime today he needed to go shopping. Laura Doyle was getting married, and even though they hadn’t invited him to the ceremony, he wasn’t going to hold a grudge. He was still going to get them a present. It was the honorable thing to do.
* * *
Every patrol cop in D.C. was carrying a picture of Hershel Inman, and even though they weren’t flashing it around, they gave an extra glance at anyone fitting the profile.
The Stormchaser team was still staying in the background and concentrating on the info coming in, and now Jo Luckett was back on the team. She was working from the field office, searching online through the banking and credit-card systems for connections to Inman’s old aliases. Wade had filled her in on the victims’ info, as well.
Charles Trent’s autopsy report was on Tate’s desk, but it was the same as the first two. All three victims had been Tasered, then strangled. And after seeing the video at Lionel Ricks’ dance studio, his death, which would be the fourth, was already an assumption, even though his body had yet to be found.
Cameron was at the murder board, mentally moving info and pictures from one place to another, convinced the answer was right in front of them. Colored push pins on a D.C. map marked each abduction site, and he had added a smaller map of Reston, with pins corresponding to the victims’ home addresses.
They had worked up the routes the victims took to work, the hours they worked, their quitting times. Nothing had been left to chance. They had two victims who’d been divorced and two who had never been married, one of which was Charles Trent, who happened to be gay. To their knowledge, the victims weren’t people Inman would have known or held a grudge against.
All they knew for sure was that Inman had posed as a deliveryman to get close to his last three victims, perhaps inspired by catching his first just after receiving a delivery, and that the victims were dead before they hit the water. Somewhere there had to be a message or a pattern to his selection—they just hadn’t found it yet.
* * *
Laura’s day at the shelter had turned into a good one. They’d finally gotten the all clear to send the evacuees home, and it was none too soon. Between the grieving relatives who’d continued to show up searching for loved ones and the people who had been displaced, this had been a particularly difficult experience. She was so glad it was over and anxious just to get home. Tomorrow was Friday, and on Saturday morning she was going for her final fitting for her wedding gown. She kept thinking of the laundry that had to be done, groceries to be purchased and a house in need of cleaning.
She had so much to do that she was considering making a call to a cleaning service she had used before, and then decided against it. She’d had enough of strangers for a while. She just wanted to get on with the business of getting married, and enjoy the peace and quiet of home.
Now all she had to do was finish packing up and documenting what was being returned to the warehouse, and she could go home.
* * *
It was almost ten in the morning before Hershel got up the energy to go out. Buying a wedding gift would most likely require going to a mall, which made him nervous.
During his trip from New Orleans to Virginia he’d stopped along the way to replenish his stash of disguises, just in case, and he considered it time to pull one out. He was so close to ending this quest that it would be foolish to get careless now.
He went back to his bedroom and pulled a small duffel bag out of the closet. There were three wigs, two mustaches and a beard, all in different colors. He thought about it for a few moments, then tried on one curly gray wig but discarded it for a bushy gray mustache, matching eyebrows and a gray sock cap. Everything would all blend together and make him fade into a crowd.
Then he switched the jacket he’d been wearing for a denim one, changed his jeans to sweats, his hiking shoes to tennis shoes, and packed the mustache and eyebrows along with the spirit gum in a fanny pack. He’d started toward the door when he happened to look out. His heart skipped a beat.
Lucy Taft seemed to be inspecting his van.
“What the hell are you up to now, you nosy little bitch?”
The shriek in his ear was so startling Hershel jumped.
“Louise! What the hell?”
It’s not about what she’s up to. It’s what you’re about to do. You leave that woman alone. Do you hear me? Leave her alone!
Hershel spun away from the window, waving his arms in the air.
“Or what? Or what? You’ll divorce me? Oh, wait! You can’t do that, can you? Because you’re fucking dead.”
Louise didn’t respond, and Hershel was done talking.
* * *
Lucy Taft had a case of what William Harold had always called cabin fever. After a breakfast of Mildred’s buckwheat pancakes, she decided she needed to walk off the calories and opted for a leisurely stroll around her block. She’d done that often in her younger days, but not so much now. Still, it seemed the perfect opportunity while the weather was still nice.
She walked all the way down to the end of her block before meeting the mailman making deliveries and paused for a brief visit. After his departure, she turned right at the corner and moved down the next block, stopping often to admire the fall flowers.
As she turned the corner to begin the return journey, an old friend saw her coming and ran out to flag her down. After a brief chat and the unexpected gift of a loaf of still-warm banana bread, she moved on, wondering why she didn’t do this more often.
She finished the last side of the block unimpeded and was on her way into her house via the back door when she saw something shiny lying in the dirt near the back of Paul’s van.
She stopped, took another look and moved closer.
“Well, now, would you look at that,” she said, and picked up a lug nut, obviously left over from changing the flat.
She glanced down at the tire to see if a lug nut was missing, but the hubcap hid the wheel. She was waffling what to do when the apartment door opened and Paul Leibowitz came out.
“Talk about timing!” she called, and shifted her banana bread closer to her body to keep from dropping it.
“For what?” Hershel snapped, hanging on to his temper by a thread.
“The weather is beautiful, isn’t it? I just couldn’t stand being indoors any longer and took myself a nice little walk. One of my friends even gave me a loaf of banana bread.”
She held it up for him to see and kept talking.
“Anyway, I was on my way back in the house when I saw something shiny near your van. Here you go,” she said, and dropped it into Hershel’s palm.
“A lug nut,” he said, then felt like a fool for stating the obvious.
“Yes. I looked to see if it was from your wheel, but I can’t tell because of the hubcap. You best check it before you leave. It wouldn’t be safe to drive for long if you’re missing one.”
Hershel was relieved the incident he’d witnessed had been innocent.
“Yes, you’re right, and thank you.”
“Glad I saw it. Nice talking to you.”
She tottered off toward the back door of her house with her banana bread, leaving Hershel in the proverbial dust.
He could almost hear Louise saying,
I told you so,
as he unlocked the van to get a crowbar. He popped the hubcap, put the missing lug nut back on and then tightened it. He replaced the hubcap, tossed the tools into the van and then dusted off his hands.
He hated to admit it, but Louise was right. He needed to leave the woman alone. She didn’t fit into his purpose, and above all, he needed to stick to the plan.
But watching her nose around the back of his van reminded him of how complacent he’d become. Besides switching vehicles and getting back into disguise, it was time to switch his tag.
Once inside the van, he took advantage of the tinted windows to put on the eyebrows and add a larger bushy mustache over the one he had, then drove away, as confident as he could be that he was still safe and sound.
He knew that malls were rife with security cameras, so he needed a less obvious place to lift a tag. He was trying to think of a place with easy access and was thinking of a junkyard when he drove right past a driving range. There were at least thirty cars in the parking lot and golf balls flying through the air behind the one small building that was the office. It had only a single window overlooking the parking lot, since all the activity took place behind the building, out on the driving range.
He drove a short distance down the road, then circled back and pulled into the parking lot, choosing an empty space between two vehicles near the back.
He sat for a few seconds, scoping out the building for signs of a security camera, but saw nothing obvious. Satisfied, he grabbed some tools from the glove box and then ducked behind the large SUV to his right as he got out. He had the license tag off in less than a minute and made short work of switching both plates. Then he walked calmly back to his van and drove off.
The next thing on his agenda was a place to dump Laura Doyle. He was still taken with the notion of hanging her and leaving her there rather than tossing her in the river. But he needed a location that was off the beaten path, like an empty farmhouse or an abandoned barn. He didn’t want to leave her body in plain sight. He wanted her hanging until the body rotted and fell apart. That was what it would take before he felt free to return to Lake Chapala.
Instead of driving back toward the city, he drove farther into the countryside, but it was all so beautiful. He got all the pretty colors he could want down in Mexico. What he needed was something that was as abandoned as he felt.
There you go, feeling sorry for yourself again.
Hershel frowned. “I’m not talking to you, Louise. All you do is remind me of how awful I am. Please, go away.”
Remind you?
Remind you?
How could you ever forget the horrors for which you are responsible?
Hershel’s ears were burning, which meant his blood pressure was rising. She was going to be the death of him yet, but he told her he wasn’t talking, and to his relief, she went away.
He was so pissed that he forgot to pay attention to where he was going and found himself heading northwest on Highway 267. He didn’t see anything resembling abandoned farm buildings. He was getting ready to turn around when he caught a glimpse of a weather vane on top of an old roof off to his right. At first he didn’t see a way to get to it to check it out, but then he saw an exit coming up and took it.
He found an old access road less than a mile from the highway, and the farther he drove, the closer he got to the barn.
He slowed down even more, searching for a way to get onto the property, and finally spotted a gate across an overgrown road. When he stopped to check it out, he saw it was only fastened with a chain looped over the post.
He pushed it aside and drove in, tentatively following the barely discernible road until it ended at what had once been a home. There was nothing left of the house but steps and a brick chimney, but now he could see the old barn. It was a two-story building with a rounded roof and large gaps where parts of it had caved in.
It was the barn that interested him. He waded through the grass to get to it, checking to make sure the path to it was free of anything that might ruin a tire. When he got to the barn, he paused at the entryway and peered in.
The floor was dirt, and there wasn’t a blade of grass growing anywhere within. He stepped inside, then immediately sneezed.